[CAUT] Hurdy Gurdy

[A440A at aol.com]

<<  I thought I see  
if there are any CAUTs who might have a little experience with this  
medieval instrument.

Does anybody know how the Hurdy-Gurdy (or French Vielle a Roue) is  
normally tuned?  I'm supposed to meet with a client tomorrow to help  
her.  Feel free to answer off list. >>

Well,   I have been playing professionally for some years now, (Garth Brooks, 
Steve Earle, and Emmylou Harris tracks, so far).  
   There are several styles of gurdy, and a variety of stringings, you have 
to decide what you want.  You have bourdon strings, which are deep drones, 
higher ones, and then the chanterelles.  The chanterelles are played by the 
tangents under your fingerswhile everything else plays one note, continuously. 
      It is usual to tune all the drones on the same note, covering two or 
sometimes three octaves. Often,  one of the higher drones crosses a buzzing 
bridge, "the dog", which is used to interject rhythmic effects into the droning.  
The chanters are usually tuned a fourth below the tonic,   so the third 
tangent will then be your tonic note on the fingerboard.   
     The classical or " Auvergnat" tuning uses a drone G mixed in there with 
the C's, between the tenor drone and the dog.  
      If this is your first time with one, don't touch the wheel!!!  treat it 
like a very finicky violin bow.  There needs to be a fine lint of cotton 
wrapped around the strings where the wheel contact them, without this right, it is 
impossible to tune them, or play them, for that matter.  
    I would be most concerned with how tight the strings feel.  Go by 
instincts, it is the only way to find out how attuned we really are.  If you have the 
pitch too low, the drones will not sound, and the tangents will be bending 
strings too much.  If you have it too high, you will break strings,or, the sound 
will become quite thin and reedy, (which it already wants to be, even on my 
custom built instruments that I lavish attention on when I am using them). 
     The chanterelles are often detuned enough to beat about 3-4 BPS between 
themselves, it give things a nice echo effect. 
Good luck, 



Ed Foote RPT 
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html